Setting Up Facebook Fan Page and Event

The first step you need to take when preparing for your book's Virtual Launch Party is to set up that Facebook fan page. This is SEPARATE from your personal Facebook page. Your personal facebook page requires people to "friend" you and share their personal information with you. Most fans won't want to do that for privacy reasons. Instead you want to make a FAN page which lets them "like" you without sharing anything personal. That is the way to go.

So I already have a Facebook fan page for my author activities. You can see that here -

This is my fan location for all fiction books I write, including my medieval novels and my murder mystery novels. Yes, I could have set up separate fan pages for every series, and even for every single book. There's only so much I want to maintain, though. And, also, this way people can ask general questions about writing and time scheduling.

If you don't have a fan page yet, set one up now. There's a link right on my author page to create your own page. Create the fan page and ask all your family and friends to "like" it. Start posting regularly to it. That way, when you have your event, it is driving traffic to that fan page.

Once you have your fan page, it's time to create the event. Think about your audience and then choose a time when a block of them could be available. If you're going for moms of school-age kids, I wouldn't go for midnight :). If you're going for lively 20 year olds, 9pm might work better than 8am. With time zones you'll never find a perfect time for everyone, but you want to do your best.

So in my case with my murder mystery launch I went for 9pm on Friday March 15th, the Ides of March. For east coasters that will be still within wakeful hours. For west coasters they'll just be home from work. And that leaves a few hours for the party on a night where many people can stay up a bit late.

So in Facebook, on the fan page, where one can normally click to make a status update or post a photo, there's a green button there for "offer, event". Clicking on that allows you to create an event.

Choose a meaningful name for it. The name will be part of all the broadcast messages so it needs to reinforce your event's theme. In my case I used

Lisa Shea's Aspen Allegations FB Launch Party

Add a "details" area that lures people in. Show them why they want to be there. I used:

"Prizes! Games! Virtual Snacks! Come on by on Friday, March 15th at 9pm EST to celebrate the launch of Lisa Shea's first murder mystery novel, Aspen Allegations! You could win free books, mugs, t-shirts and other fun items. Be sure to share with friends and family - all are welcome!"

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About Lisa's Sites

This LisaShea site is one of over twenty sites I own and run. The key focus of each of my sites is to help visitors improve their lives and find joy in each day. Many of my books' proceeds are donated to charity. I have been online since the early '80s, began publishing in 1987, and have now published over 300 books.
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